WCW Saturday Night (6.8.91) review 

 

June 8, 1991 

 

Taped: May 13, 1991 

 

We’re in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Hosts are Jim Ross and Paul E. This looks like an interesting show on paper, and it’ll be our first look at one of pro-wrestling’s biggest ever stars. Alexandra York opens the show to tell us the computer has selected the next member of the York Foundation, and they’ll be debuting at Clash of the Champions: Knocksville, USA. I don’t want to spoil you, but it’s one of the dumbest heel turns I can remember.  

 

Steve Austin vs. Keith Hart 

Stonecold is “Stunning” Steve Austin here, accompanied by Vivacious Veronica. His valet would be replaced by his girlfriend Lady Blossom aka Jeanie Clarke, who he would end up marrying in 1992 and having two kids with. What I didn’t realise is that Clarke, a UK citizen, had been married to Billy Jack Haynes prior to that in order to get a green card. Austin of 1991 is a Flair clone. He’s got long blonde hair and a sparkly robe. The crowd are dead quiet as he runs through spots. To be fair to them, he’s fairly basic at this point.  

 

Veronica is completely useless. Austin throws Keith out to her to get her spots in, and she pinches him and then thumps him on the butt with the ref looking. Out Keith goes again and Veronica does nothing. Austin gets bored, hits the Stun Gun and adds a clothesline for a laugh. If you watched this, you would have no idea this guy would become the biggest star in the history of the wrestling business.  

 

My favourite thing about 1991 Austin is his selling, and he doesn’t do any of that here. It’s just a squash. By the next time we see Steve, he’ll already be the TV champion and was fairly successful on WCW’s undercards until the invasion of Hogan stooges in 1994. This was a fascinating watch. I wonder if Austin has seen this recently? I’m sure he’d have a few things to say about Vivacious Veronica. The weird thing is, she’s not just some bimbo who doesn’t know what she’s doing. She was trained, as a wrestler, by Larry Sharpe at the Monster Factory and has already had matches. It just didn’t work here at all for some reason.  

 

Video Control gives us some clips from previous Flair-Eaton clashes ahead of their match at Clash 15. Then some footage of Muta as he’s wrestling Lex Luger for the #1 contender’s spot. Knowing where this is going, I feel like a car crash is incoming. I feel weirdly nervous about it.  

 

WCW TV Championship 

Bobby Eaton (c) vs. Arn Anderson 

This is a rematch from Arn losing the belt at Superbrawl. Before we get to the next Clash, Bobby’s TV title run would be over. This starts at a frantic speed, but Ric Flair shows up, previewing his match with Eaton at Clash 15.  

Flair’s arrival slows the match right down, and we get a repeat of the mechanically sound but dull match from Superbrawl. After Eaton survives the DDT, thanks to the ropes, Flair jumps in for the DQ. **. Flair looks energised, despite his impending departure and we should get a decent match between him and Eaton before he fucks off up North. 

 

Promo Time: Johnny B Badd & Theodore R Long 

Missy is on the interview. JR gives us the skinny on Johnny B Badd saying he won Golden Gloves in NY state, five times, and knocked out Razor Ruddock. So, obviously, they marketed him as a pretty boy.  

This is the same promo he cut last time where he says he’s “so pretty I should have been born a little girl”. Teddy asks Missy if she has any more questions and she’s all “nah, mate”. The interview was horrible last time, why repeat it?  

 

Black Blood vs. Mike Maverick 

Black Blood is Billy Jerk Haynes under a hood pretending to be an executioner. Maverick is none other than Jack Dupp. Billy Jerk is so bad he couldn’t even cut it in the WCW. He carries an enormous axe, as part of his executioner gimmick, and hails from “France”. Haha. He’d wrestle at GAB and that’ll be it. That’s the end of Billy Jerk Haynes. 

 

Video Control takes us to Dusty Rhodes’ chat show gimmick, and his co-host is Jason Hervey.  

Dusty hilariously makes Hervey sit much lower down, so he looks like a child. His guest is Arn Anderson. Dusty tries to stir the pot, suggesting Arn deserves a title shot but has never had one because Flair was the champion. Arn calls him on his head games and calls Hervey a “chopped off Midnight Cowboy” and leaves. The implication being that Hervey is a male prostitute, if you’re familiar with the film. Paul E jumps in and asks Hervey what he’s doing out here anyway. Dusty runs him off. Dusty Rhodes just doing whatever the fuck he wants here. Riding the company straight into the sun. No wonder he got shitcanned. What a terrible year 1991 is creatively. I can imagine Jim Herd had something to do with it.  

 

PN News vs. Joe Cruz  

PN News is “The Rapmaster”. He does a rap. It’s horrible. You can see white people dancing to it in the crowd. He even does the “yo baby yo baby yo” thing.  

PN News was just a ‘thing’ that happened in WCW in 1991. I can’t explain it. PN News has a ridiculously high Cagematch rating (7.39 at time of writing) btw, which I can only put down to his run in Germany after WCW. News finishes with a splash off the top, and they play his music before he’s even finished. He then boogies on down with Bill Alphonso.  

 

Video Control gives us a look at the Desperado’s, three men on horseback riding into a Ghost Town. Oh, you never heard of the Desperado’s? It’s a shame the gimmick never worked because they made some great footage here. Three mysterious cowboy drifters. They could have been pretty cool. It’s Dutch Mantell, Black Bart and Randy Colley aka Moondog Rex. WCW turned the concept into comedy with the bumbling trio looking for Stan Hansen, only for Hansen to refuse to be involved in the whole thing and fuck off back to Japan.  

They made this whole mini-Western. I’m totally into it. Oh well. 

 

Diamond Studd vs. Johnny Meadows 

Studd is Scott Hall, managed by DDP. Page seems more interested in recruiting ladies to be Hall’s valet than the actual match. Hall has “STUD” on his trunks in studs. Razor’s Edge finishes. How did WCW fumble this guy so badly? No one gives a shit about the angle AT ALL.  

 

Barry Windham & One Man Gang vs. Brian Pillman & Dustin Rhodes 

WHAT? What the actual fuck is this? Windham gets distracted by the giant mouse at ringside. Does everyone see it, or just Barry? I’m confused. Pillman wins with a crossbody inside a minute. I didn’t actually hear the bell ring, so match time is a mystery. Windham kicks Pillman’s ass afterwards because he destroyed Pillman in this weird feud. He’ll kick him out of the company this week.  

 

More importantly, who was that mouse? Or maybe the right question is what was that mouse? 

 

The 411: 

WCW in 1991. Total insanity. Vivacious Veronica, multiple talk shows, Scott Hall gimmicked up the wazoo, PN News and furries. God, I love it so much. You can’t do wrestling this badly anymore, they’d eat you alive for it. When modern WWE puts the wrong person over everyone gets mad. Imagine if they put the wrong person over and it was because they got distracted by a mouse at ringside? Or they gave Cody Rhodes a stripper gimmick where he never spoke? Just hilariously bad. I can’t wait to watch more of this.